


Like Weeds

by HalfBakedMermaid



Category: Fallout 4
Genre: F/F, F/M, Gen, M/M, Multi, Other
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-24
Updated: 2016-09-24
Packaged: 2018-08-16 23:53:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,801
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8122450
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HalfBakedMermaid/pseuds/HalfBakedMermaid
Summary: The early days of Hancock's political career were full of bodies and bad luck. He didn't come into power easy, and, early on, he barely held on to that power. His biggest hurdle? A man called Savior and his followers; Men and women who embrace chaos and all her beautiful facets. Years before the Sole Survivor of Vault 111 waltzed into his life he was trying to make the world just a little bit better. It's a lot harder than it looks. Hard to stay a man in a world of monsters.





	

There was a mighty harah from the rooms above and below and from the balcony. Smack dab in the middle of Goodneighbor, The grand study of the Old State House was full of cheers.

There was a loud THUMP on the side of the building, just beyond the balcony door. One lone figure stood upon the balcony, leaning on the railing above the townsfolk like a mighty hero in his Statesman coat and proper hat. Or, rather, one _ghoul_ who stood there trying to be a hero; He'd just thrown a bloody body over the side of the railing to the sound of joyful cheers and clapping.

" _Of the people, for the people!_ " John McDonough's gravely voice was heard to say.

And they ate it up.

John stepped off the little railed ledge and back into the study, a wide grin stretched across his scarred lips and fresh pack of cigarettes in his gnarled hand. "Got me a little souvenir." He growled out, laughing as he flicked the metal lighter in his other hand. There was a proper bullet halved and soldered to the side of the silver flip lighter. That's all it took. One bullet to that greedy fucker Vic's skull and John didn't have to think about him ever again. Sure, he cut Vic up real good before slitting his throat, and the bullet was just.. irony.. when he found the lighter. But it would make a great story some day. _John McDonough.. Hero of the People.. for fuck's sake, man, yer ma would be so proud_.

He smirked as he lit a cigarette, his little gang of miscreants and do-gooders patting his back as he walked past, looking for his best friend.. the woman who'd stood beside him when he'd pulled up his panties and decided to change Goodneighbor. The woman who kicked his ass when he tried to back out of it. So where was the bitch?

His crew took their time getting to business. That bitch was going to insure there were no dead bodies to stink the place up before they'd even had a chance to take it over. So chances were she was working, giving out orders.

He was ready to call the war won and sit on his ass til someone else came along to take his prize, but she was going to keep him on his toes, no matter what.

While cleaning up the mess of bodies, a couple of guys started getting greedy with the chems. That's when Hancock's voice came up again and.. damn it he loved the looks he got when he started talking like a proper statesman.. or at least his interpretation of it.

"None of that, guys.. Come on. Put it all on the table and we'll make sure everyone gets a little somethin'. That's how this has gotta work! We split the spoils even.. and we split the responsibility even, too. Anyone got a problem with that?" He was playing with his new lighter as he spoke, flicking the cap, one hand behind his back in a tight gloved fist. Damn he was having too much fun.. cause all eyes were on the ghoul with the tricorn hat and not a one of them sought to disagree.

"Hey, _Hancock_ ," She dripped with sarcasm. The throaty voice came from the twisting stairs in the foyer.

John walked through the opened doorway, stepping over a body. "Anything left alive down there?" The ghoul leaned on the railing and looked down to Fahrenheit, short copper hair plastered against her brow and blood on her t-shirt. "Wyatt found some guy hiding in the closet.. pissed himself." He grinned, passing his cigarette down to the woman a few stairs below him.

Fahrenheit was the only woman he'd ever met who rolled her eyes. He loved it, called her a _fancy_ lad when she did it too much. She was always annoyed with John, it seemed. Annoyed as she was, she didn't reject his peace offering. "If you're done with your speech, I got a problem."

"Living or dead?" The woman was trying to make him clean up the bodies.. something he flat out refused to do.. he intended to get high as a fucking kite and do it in the morning, and she would have his hide for it, he was aware.

"Dead, and you got two working shoulders. I need someone to bash in a door, dead body holding it closed. Think you and Talbot could get it?" She took a drag and wiped her face with her shirt, not caring that he saw her breasts. Not that she really had breasts. Not that they'd ever been intimate, but they'd been friends for a literal lifetime and she really held no mysteries for him. Never had.

"Yeah yeah, I got ya babe. Got any jars givin' ya problems while we're at this?" He rounded the stairs to descend them, brushing past her on his way down. " **Talbot!** " he yelled through the State House.

Fahra winced at the sound "Just your head." She mumbled.

The basement smelled foul.. like death and decay and rotting mirelurk. John covered his nose with the sleeve of his coat, looking up the stairs. "Fuck, we didn't do this, right?" His black eyes were watering.

Fahra came down a moment later with Talbot in tow. "There's a jail cell back there. Found four girls in it. They're in the attic now, Daisy's takin' care of em." She said it evenly, and hoped John would follow suit, but he was seething now.

"Right..." His hands clenched and unclenched as he looked back at the hallway Fahra had indicated.. _cells_.. "Would love to kill that fucker again."

"There." The woman pointed to a set of double doors and stepped back for Talbot to give them a push. Several bullet holes splintered the wood and a little pool of blood was solidifying under them. One door seemed to be secured with wood or metal, the other was held closed by a squishy weight, most likely a body.

"This ain't budging.. we'll have to move the body. McDonough?" Talbot's milky, bloodshot eyes looked back to John.

John pulled his gaze away from the hallway he'd been stewing over and back to the ghoul attempting to breach the door. "Eh? Right. We just push then." He joined Talbot at the door and both ghouls shouldered against it, ready to push the body back.

Instead the wood cracked along the hinges and the whole thing came down with a thunderous **THONK** atop the dead body. All that could be seen under the door leaning against the corpse was a couple of limbs. It was a mess.. neither man wanted to walk into the room and Fehra was on the verge of vomiting, something that had never happened before, as far as she was aware.

They were all ready to just walk away, the two ghouls both holding their scarred faces in revulsion. At least it didn't change the smell, just as putrid as ever. Fahrenheit finally walked past them and into the room, grabbing the far end of the door. "We can leave this here. Or we do the fucking work, like we planned. Heave."

Even John was unwilling to argue and grabbed one end of the door. Talbot caught an edge and they finagled the monstrous oak slab against the basement wall.

None of them wanted to deal with the body. Had to be done, though. Fahra and Talbot pulled a stretch of plywood over. John stepped past broken limbs to survey the once-barricaded room.

It smelled. Not like the death that lingered in the basement.. like booze and cigarettes and burnt flesh. He had no nose to wrinkle, but his face scrunched up in disgust.

There was a steady drip-drip-drip from behind a mess of plastic hanging across one side of the room, the wood floor soaking wet stretching all the way to the door. The rest of the room was covered in couches and chairs and surfaces littered with inhalers, needles and bottles. It was filthy, trash in the corners, magazines and bottles of beer, leather belts and old boots. Dirty towels, strips of ripped clothing and... _fuck_.. broken sticks covered in blood. He found leather straps and cords tied to the legs of the tables. There were splashes of black edged in red across the wood of the floor and the tables and all over the upholstery; old blood and fresh blood. He spotted chains hanging from the ceiling, a hook at the end of one.

His heart went numb and it all started to blur around him. John's whole body trembled with a growl that made Fahrenheit and Talbot stop their work on the corpse. He gripped the plastic hanging from the ceiling and ripped it down with a mighty roar. " _That.. fucking.. **monster!!**_ " He growled out the words and clinched his fists, unable to fight the anger.. and having absolutely no outlet.

Though his red haze the sparkle of water drew his attention to a figure in the corner beyond more plastic sheeting.

She was standing, but only because there was no weight to hold aloft. Her body was nothing but a stick, leaning, face hidden, against the walls of the rusted and moldy shower stall. No meat left on her bones, just bruised, damaged skin clinging to a broken, crumpled frame. Her hair had been cut.. pulled.. ripped from the scalp, and only a few matted clumps of dark, dull hair clung to her head. There were burns on her legs, her arms, her back was covered in slashes, new overlapping old. Grotesque patterns shimmered in the water that threatened to wash away some of the grime that held her together.

He stared at the poor creature for minutes before the other two noticed her. She breathed, he was sure he could see it, like how he imaged a bird's heart flutters; quickly, barely. 

"fuck.." He wasn't sure who said it, Fahra or Talbot.

It was Fahra who stood and crossed the room. "John" She was gentle with her words for once.. probably not for his sake. "John get that mess out of here. Go." She gave him a push that finally snapped him back to the present. She pushed again. "Help Talbot." She ordered, and he numbly obeyed.

Another glance back before Fahra blocked her view, then.. well then he worked. It was mindless and numb, moving through the building with bodies in his arms and blood on his hands. He tried not to think.. stayed away from the mentats so he wouldn't have to. It just made him feel so cold to imagine how much Vic should have suffered. _Stop it. This is fuckin' pointless!_

Every time that line of thought came up he scolded himself and let out a rumbling growl. John then hunched into his work, focusing on the physical rather than the mental for as long as he could.

\-------------------------------

Dawn was coming. Sleep was not. John had buried himself into the velvety couch in the study and taken off his hat and boots, shot gun laying at his side. His hands laid palms up in his lap, his bottomless black eyes stared into nothingness. He'd taken a couple of hits of jet after most of his guys had wandered off to sleep or medicate. Fahrenheit was nowhere in sight, but there was a ghoul on the couch across from him and two guys talking in the foyer. This all slid over his brain like stormclouds.

In his mind, flashes of the monstrous grin on Vic's face before he died, the wisp of a person left in that torture chamber below them, the sound of dripping water and dripping blood were the same as red poured from Vic's throat again as he squawked like a radrat. A million other images in between. Nothing at all at the edges of his high. In hindsight, this would be his favorite part; The Nothing.

That's when sleep finally took him, in The Nothing, leaving his dreams empty for hours after the sun rose. When John woke up, his head pounding and legs numb, it was to the groans of many others with the same ailments.

When his tired eyes finally opened he looked around the room in confusion, dark eyes wide at the alien surroundings. Thank goodness for the boarded windows, sunlight would be a serious bitch right now. Fahra was leaning on a counter covered in faded boxes, munching at a handful of dry cereal.

"Hey, Hancock, you lost your hat." She stuffed most of the handful in her mouth, leaving a few pieces out to throw at the ghoul. John held up a hand, grunting. He was way too slow.

"So I didn't dream it all?" He stood and bones cracked. His back arched and he stretched long arms back to limber them up.

"No you did not, Mister Mayor." She grabbed the cereal box and scooped out another handful, then passed the open box to John. 

He took the box without missing a beat. "Casualties?"

"We lost Don."

"Hmm.. No one liked Don."

"Wyatt's got a broken arm. Daisy took a bullet to the knee. I think her fightin' days are over."

"Prisoners?" He munched at the cereal.

"Two of Vic's men.. One's a pansy kid from Diamond City.. Figure we'll scare the shit out of him and send him home. Other guy's name is Orion King. Ring a bell?

"Yeah.. worked for Deegan... tried kidnapping the old lady. I thought Ed put him down?"

"So did I. Impersonator? Synth?"

"Might just be one lucky merc."

They both stayed quiet for a moment, munching at stale oat chunks and processing the nastyness that was Orion King.

Finally he grabbed a can of water, pulled the tab and took a long gulp to clear his throat of the old dry lumps. He passed the can to Fahrenheit. "I'll deal with him myself. Where is he?"

"Chained up in the basement cell."

John's lips pulled into a snarl and his black eyes narrowed.

"And.."

She interrupted, "All upstairs. Daisy says they need some medical supplies. I know we have something in the store rooms here, just need to go through them all.

"Then do that. There's a mess of stempacks in the room across the stairs. How bad are they?" He grumbled.

"Varies. Two of them seem fine. A little beat up but mostly in tact. The others will need some time."

"And the ghoul?"

"The what?"

"The ghoul we found in the fucking basement. Dead or alive?" There was no patients left in him.

"... She's a smoothskin, boss."

He stared blankly at her for a few moments then dropped his eyes to the floor. "Fuck..."

"She's alive.. but... She's not there." Fahra shrugged weakly and took a chug of water.. it was better then awkwardly staring.

There was a little growl from the ghoul and Fahra sighed. "Let it go, Hancock. Vic's dead, you win. Checkmate. You got more important shit to deal with."

"I really should have taken my damn time.. that piece of shit didn't deserve it so easy."

"You cut out his eyeball and made him eat it, John.. He didn't die easy. Now stop it, we got a fucking town to turn around."

"Yeah.. fine. Alright." He snatched a box of snack cakes off the counter and went back to the couch. His gun was stuffed into the flag tied round his waist and he situated the tricorn hat carefully atop his bald, scarred head. 

"Use the room across from us. Setup tables for supplies so we can take stock. Have your crew sweep the whole building. My crew will head outside and clean out Daisy's old place, see if we can put her and those girls in the shops. I'm sure none of em wanna be in this shithole anymore. Send Wyatt to find Allan, the bum's probably hiding in the Rexford. This army needs fed, you know the drill."

John had unwrapped a snack cake and stopped talking to eat it.

Fareh passed the water back to John. "And Vic?"

"Leave him. See if it stirs up any resentment. We gotta weed out Vic's people soon."

"Maybe King knows who's dirty?"

"Maybe.." A grin split John's face.. a wicked smile that made Fahrenheit a little nervous.

"Hancock?"

"If anyone hears the screams, you tell them exactly what I'm doin' down there, got me?" He was still grinning, but there was no pleasure or amusement behind it. John's eyes seemed darker than ever.

Copper brows knit as she stared at the ghoul.. but she gave him a nod. King was dead no matter what. Maybe killing him would work some of that guilt out of his system.


End file.
